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Conversion

I’ve just finished reading Katherine Howe’s new historical fiction novel, Conversion. Historical fiction is a genre I like a lot, so it shouldn’t be surprising that I’ve read both her The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and her The House of Velvet and Glass. I bought an inexpensive used copy of Deliverance Dane in late 2013 and really enjoyed it. I was very happy to have bought the book because it was one I wanted to pass on to Kathy, who also likes historical fiction, so she could read it too. Early this spring I found a used copy of House of Velvet and read that as well. I again passed it to Kathy, saying it wasn’t as good as Deliverance Dane but it was still worth the read. In July Howe came out with Conversion. Not wanting to pay full price for a hardback of it, I put my name on the library list to read it. My copy came in last week. Now that I’ve finished it I can say I’m glad that I got a library copy of Conversion rather than spending the money for even an inexpensive used copy of it. I have no interest in passing the book on to anyone.

From my perspective, Conversion just doesn’t work well. The “interludes” back in the early 18th century didn’t grab me at all. I know Howe was trying to stick closely to the historical facts in those sections but none of the characters in those interludes seemed full people, much less worth caring about. The parallels (and lack thereof) between what’s happening to the senior girls and what was happening in 18th century Salem seemed trite. I know they were meant to make us rethink how an unexplained sickness among teenaged girls would be explained today (as people did with the 2012 LeRoy New York situation upon which the author admits she drew) but the whole exploration came across as superficial and trite. I hung in with the book until the end only because the 2012 storyline, set as it was in a Catholic girl’s school, reminded me some of my own high school experiences.